Green Tea (matcha) Macarons for Karen

A friend at work has been requesting these for months. I thought her birthday would be a good time to make them!

For the filling:
White chocolate ganache
Green tea (matcha) powder to taste, available from Japanese grocery stores
I found dissolving the green tea powder in the hot cream worked best.

Turkish Delight Macarons

The swirly pattern is made by adding powdered macaron colouring to the batter before putting the batter in the piping bag.

The filling is made by folding chopped turkish delight and some rosewater through a milk chocolate ganache.

Honeycomb Macarons

Filled with a milk chocolate ganache with crushed honeycomb folded through. The honeycomb melts into the ganache after a while, so you don't really get the crunch of the honeycomb.

Pear Crumble Macarons

The filling:

Pear ganache

Pear jelly

Caramel

Crumble

Resting

Completed filling

Pear ganache and pear jelly

Caramel added

Finished product

Peach Macarons

The flavour of these is quite subtle even though I used the Chilean juice powder from Casa Iberica again...

Lemon Curd Macarons

Speckled Strawberry Macarons

Strawberry ganache:
125g strawberries, blended and put through sieve
70g white chocolate
40g milk chocolate
(Heat strawberry puree, pour over chocolate and mix until ganache forms)

Speckles:
Pastry brush
Pink food colouring
Disposable glove
Dip brush in food colouring and use fingers to flick onto macarons before resting.

White marshmallow macarons

This time, I used more marshmallow and less chocolate - probably only about 40g of white chocolate, just to break the marshmallow bonds up a bit (they're really sticky!)

Pineapple Macarons!

For these, I used the same juice powder from Chile (purchased from Casa Iberica) that I used for the watermelon macarons. The flavour is very intense!

I found a website that sells the stuff and ships internationally:

http://www.mexgrocer.com/brand-zuko.html

Mango Macarons

Mango Ganache:
125g mango puree, heated to ~60 degrees
160g white chocolate (melt in mango puree)
Cool ganache, then whisk with electric mixer for ~20 mins until paler in colour and lighter in texture

I've also decorated these with a new gold edible paint that I've gotten my hands on.

Watermelon Lollipop Macarons for Easter

I used this to flavour the ganache - bought from Casa Iberica

Ispahan Macaron - Raspberry, Lychee, Rosewater...

This is a mini version of the Pierre Herme one...I made raspberry and lychee jelly using gelatine leaves and raspberry and lychee puree.

The rosewater is in the white chocolate ganache.

Two new flavours - Dulce de Leche & Green Tea (Matcha)

Green Tea Macarons

Add 1/2 a teaspoon of matcha (green tea powder) to ~100g of white chocolate ganache

Dulce de Leche Macarons

Add 3 tablespoons of Dulce de Leche to ~200g of white chocolate ganache

Ready for piping

Green Tea, Dulce de Leche, Passionfruit

Dulce de Leche

Matcha (Green Tea)

Generic Macaron Recipe

I have had many requests for macaron recipes lately, and thought I'd share this quick and easy macaron shell recipe. It's great for when you need to make macarons in a hurry, but unfortunately doesn't make very many (~20).

110g ground almonds
200g icing sugar
50g caster sugar
90g egg whites
colouring of your choice

Whisk egg white to stiff peaks, gradually adding the caster sugar. Add colouring to achieve intensity you desire.

Fold almonds and icing sugar into the eggwhites, "macaroning" until you achieve the correct consistency.

Pipe rounds onto baking trays and leave until a skin forms (usually at least 30 mins, much longer if humidity is high).

Bake at 150 deg C for 12-13 mins, cool and remove from trays.

Sandwich with your desired filling.

Samantha's Macaron Barbie Cake

My friend's baby, Samantha, is turning one this week. My sister and I made her this birthday cake - a Barbie cake decorated with mini macarons...

Passionfruit Ganache

An alternative to using 40% milk chocolate to make a passionfruit ganache is to use white chocolate instead.

The result - passionfruit flavour, but unfortunately not much tang...the white chocolate adds a lot more sweetness than the milk chocolate does.

Still works though, and a nice bright yellow colour! I added back about a teaspoon of seeds for decoration.

Marshmallow Macarons

For the ganache:
100g cream
50g pink marshmallows
70g white chocolate
~5 white marshmallows (chopped into small pieces)

Heat cream, melt pink marshmallows into the cream, add white chocolate and whisk until melted and combined. Fold through the chopped white marshmallows and refrigerate until cooled.

100 (almost) cherry ripe macarons for Sophie's first birthday...